ClaXon

Project Description

Introducing robots to assist human personnel in manufacturing

For safety reasons, robots in a manufacturing environment are typically shielded from humans. However, humans and robots have very complementary skills. Combining the dexterity, flexibility and problem-solving ability of humans with the strength, endurance and precision of robots, the quality of industrial production can be improved – as well as people’s working conditions. Yet, introducing so-called ‘cobots’ (collaborative robots) to flexibly assist human personnel in a range of tasks faces several technological and acceptance hurdles. These challenges were tackled in the ICON-imec project, ClaXon.

Our role: Coordinating the research & design process with users in mind

SMIT held the research role in this project, and coordinated the research & design process using the Innovation Binder Approach. SMIT studied the current social and economic situation and explored the potential future of manufacturing in this specific use case.